The application received 2 GAC Early Warnings, from France and Luxembourg. The warning system is noted as a strong recommendation on behalf of national governments to the ICANN Board that a given TLD application should be denied as it stands. Applicants are encouraged to work with objecting GAC members.[3]

The warnings are nearly identical and state that the applicant should consider withdrawal or implement an objection procedure to consider geographical indications, as "vin" is a term that is strictly and clearly defined by French and European law.[4]

Donuts replied to France´s warning to .vin, and its similar objections for .health, .sarl, .hotel, and .architect, with an impassioned defense of the validity of open registration for New gTLDs. They even quote the GAC's own advice with regards to its contract with .xxx registry provider, ICM Registry, which notes that at that time the GAC was against any monitoring of TLD content given that it seems to overstep ICANN's technical mandate.[5]

Application Details

Many of Donuts' applications, including this one, seem to have been applied for using the same boiler-plate application in which the TLD is defined as a means of providing greater expression on the Internet and will be an open TLD without pre-registration policies. It notes its plans to adhere with all registration policies required by ICANN and its intent to have remediation and takedown policies clearly defined to fit within these requirements. Pre-registration verification will not be used and this as defined as causing "cause more harm than benefit by denying domain access to legitimate registrants." They intend to control abuse through "extensive user and rights protections."[6]

Developments

Although the GAC was unable to come to consensus on advice for the .wine and .vin strings, the European Union appears to be strongly against the delegation of the strings without protection of "Geographic Indicator" rights holders (such as Champagne, a wine-growing region) and wine producers. A letter to ICANN by European Commission VP Neelie Kroes made their position clear and stated that they believe ICANN should hold to the GAC's advise on .wine and .vin given at ICANN 46 (Beijing), instead of the "no consensus" advise given in September 2013. The advise given at the Beijing meeting was to not move ahead with delegating the strings until GAC could come to a consensus.[7]